Driving around Sparks to and from work, shopping or going to Victorian Square for special events, we encounter brand new streets or ones that have recently been reconstructed. Or, we may find ourselves on Sparks Boulevard between Shadow Mountain and Disc—a section of road that is scheduled to be widened and reconstructed next year.

Every street in the city is rated by the PCI formula or Pavement Condition Index. That index runs from zero to 100, zero representing an unimproved road and 100 being a brand new one. Historically, roads that have a PCI of 70 or above are considered in good shape. When properly maintained, they have a long life ahead of them.

Those streets that have a PCI of 40 or below have ‘failed' as engineers say. No amount of preventive maintenance will help them, and they must be totally reconstructed from the road bed up to the final layer of asphalt or concrete. Streets with a PCI of 69 down to 41 can normally be saved with continued crack sealing, slurry seal, microseal or an asphalt overlay. An overlay consists of removing the existing top asphalt layer and replacing it.

Fortunately, the Regional Transportation Commission is assisting the City of Sparks with preventive maintenance funding. With the RTC's help, we expect to accomplish two things: we want to reach the point where we can crack seal and slurry seal every street in Sparks once every five years; and, at the same time, maintain or improve our current PCI average of 70 for the streets in Sparks.

When we reach that point, the city will no longer have the additional funding support from the RTC for preventive maintenance. This is one more reason we need a more realistic motor vehicle fuel tax distribution formula.